Phantom Power
Phantom Power is a podcast that explores the invisible influence of sound on our lives. Host Dr. Mack Hagood interviews sound scholars, artists, and acoustic ecologists about topics like noise-cancelling headphones, silent films, audiobooks, computer speech, and the politics of listening. The show combines intellectual rigor with great audio, making it accessible to both newcomers and experts in sound studies. It is part of the SpectreVision Radio network, which focuses on the intersection of arts and the uncanny.
Episodes
Disquiet in Tehran (Siavash Amini)
Siavash Amini is an experimental composer living in Tehran, trying to live his life and hone his craft amid United States bombings and government crackdowns. Amazingly, he is still creating. August 28th will see release of his collaboration with the American theorist and poet Eugene Thacker, Songs for Sad Poets Vol. III (Hallow Ground). He’ll also soon drop a solo record, Beneath the Pine on Lawre
Audiobook Superstar Robin Miles: The Full Interview
While Mack takes a summer break, we bring you this treat from the archives: the full-members-only version of his 2024 interview with beloved audiobook narrator Robin Miles. This episode features almost an hour of additional content, including our What’s Good segment where Robin unsurprisingly makes some really great book recommendations! To get access to all our members’ content, past and future,
Noise, Tinnitus and Affect Theory: Marie Thompson Extended Interview Recast
While Mack takes a summer break, we bring you this treat from the archives: the full-members-only version of his 2024 interview with the influential theorist of noise and affect theory, Dr. Marie Thompson. This episode features 40 minutes of additional content on Thompson’s research on tinnitus and hearing loss. To get access to all our members’ content, past and future, become a member at mackhag
Podcasting's Politics of Empathy with Jason Loviglio
Today we talk radio, podcasting, and democracy with Jason Loviglio. Jason is an expert on the history of National Public Radio and a key theorist of how audio media have changed the public sphere. He traces the politics of radio down to the smallest details, like the kinds of mics that are used, the way radio personalities use their voices, even the fan mail that comes in.
In this episode, Jason
Digital feeds, malnourished students
Today we’re doing one of our occasional episodes where host Mack Hagood talks about a new essay he’s written for our newsletter “Feed Logic and the Failure to Thrive” Mack writes that students and professors are struggling, both academically and spiritually. He tries to diagnose the issue he felt in his classrooms this year and the role technology may play in it.
For new listeners, Mack is a wr
Did Moog ruin synths? Suzanne Ciani reveals analog's original sin
Today we talk to modular synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani and MIT Spatial Sound Lab researcher KamranV. Suzanne and Kamran both love quadraphonic sound, and they have a new quad release coming out on June 4th called Ciani/Orkest. They are on a mission to make quadraphonic music accessible to both musicians and to listeners, and in this interview, Kamran will explain how, you, with no special equipment
Anonymous Sounds: Library Music
Today, we look at some of the hidden labor that creates the ubiquitous music that we hear all around us.
Today we talk to Nessa Johnston and Jamie Sexton, co-editors (with Elodie A. Roy) of Anonymous Sounds, Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s. It's the first scholarly book that takes a comprehensive look at the early off-the-shelf music industry that soundtracked TV, movies,
William Basinski: From 'NASA Brat' to Space Cowboy
In the fall of 2001, an obscure experimental musician decided to revisit some analog tape loops he had made back in the early eighties. Inspired by the work of Steve Reich, Brian Eno, and Robert Fripp, William Basinski had created his own distinctive practice of taping easy listening music off the radio, cutting the tape into loops, roughly a foot long, and then slowing it way down.
The result tr
How to Listen Like a Fish with Marine Biologist Sophie Nedelec
Do fish have ears? What is the nature of underwater hearing and how does it differ from hearing in the air? If humans are the evolutionary descendants of ocean creatures, do we retain any fishy traces in the way we hear the world? And what about all the noise we humans make in our oceans? If we want to save the planet, do we need to learn to listen like the fishes once again? Today we explore thes
Talking Back to the “The Oral Theory of Everything”
Why does a sixty-year-old media theory resurface in the media every few years, while journalists ignore the great communication scholarship that has emerged in the meantime? More importantly, what effects does antiquated thinking have on the public understanding of our current digital discontent? In this episode, Cameron Naylor interviews our usual host, Mack Hagood, about his recent newsletter, “
The Internet Promised Creative Freedom. What Happened?
Creativity doesn’t come out of thin air–it evolves in relation to the communities around us and the tools available to us. Some of the most common forms of everyday creative works–memes, podcasts, vertical videos–barely existed a couple of decades ago. And obviously, we can’t ignore the changing economics of creative industries, which wield an outsized influence over what kind of work gets made.
What makes a podcast great? Legendary producer Julie Shapiro shows us.
Today we go on a listening tour with audio legend Julie Shapiro, who has helped define what radio and podcasts could be over the past 25-plus years. Shapiro co-founded the Third Coast International Audio Festival, one of the most prestigious and influential awards in audio. She was a longtime executive at PRX Radiotopia, home of shows like Song Exploder, Kitchen Sisters Present and Everything is A
Noise, power, and Minneapolis: Gabriel Mendel interview (Part 2)
The year is off to a very disturbing start thanks to ICE’s violent paramilitary incursion in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Minnesota citizens have responded with mass protests and direct action, much of it sonic in nature—with the sound of whistles alerting neighbors and making life harder on ICE.
This episode, we speak with an expert on noise, power, and protest who also happens to live and teach in Mi
Gabriel Saloman Mindel Pt. 1: Yellow Swans, Noise, and the Art of Pushing Boundaries
Gabriel Saloman Mindel is a lot more than one half of the United States best known noise bands. He's also an interdisciplinary artist and a scholar whose research studies the interplay between sound and power, as he theorizes how noise can push the limits of the body in struggles over space and political autonomy.
Gabriel has an MFA from Simon Fraser University and a PhD in the History of Consci
African Music Technology: Branding, Identity, and the Global Music Market w/ Kingsley Kwadwo Okyere, Louise Meintjes, and Reginold Royston
Today host Mack Hagood is joined by three remarkable scholars whose work sits at the intersection of African music, technology, and culture.
Dr. Louise Meintjes is Marcello Lotti Professor at Duke University. She's a distinguished ethnomusicologist whose groundbreaking research on South African music has transformed how we understand the recording studio as a site of cultural negotiation and crea
Irv Teibel’s Environments, AI Audio, and the Future of Listening w/ Machine Listening
How did we humans become so dependent on white noise machines, noise-canceling headphones, lo-fi girl and other technologies that help us privatize and individualize our soundscape? An important character in that cultural history is Irv Teibel, whose environments series helped change how we listen. These records were the first to use recorded natural soundscapes as technologies to change how we fe
Horror Film Sound Designer Graham Reznick on Crafting the Uncanny
Graham Reznick is a multifaceted sound designer, screenwriter, director, and musician, best known for his work on indie horror films like Ti West's X and the critically acclaimed video game Until Dawn. In this episode, Reznick discusses Rabbit Trap, a film based on Welsh folklore blending analog synthesis with supernatural soundscapes.
Host Mack Hagood and Reznick begin talking about horror soun
Maurice Rocco: Race, Queerness, and Thai Music Culture w/ Benjamin Tausig
With movie star looks and a raucous piano style, Maurice Rocco made a splash in the 1940’s, influencing future rock and rollers Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. By the 60s, however, he was a has-been in the U.S., playing lounges in Bangkok, Thailand until his grisly murder by a pair of male sex workers. In his deeply insightful book Bangkok After Dark, ethnomusicologist Benjamin Tausig reclaim
Phantom Power Trailer
Sound is an invisible force that most people rarely notice and barely understand. Dr. Mack Hagood explores the world of sound studies with the world's most amazing sound researchers, artists, and designers, as well as musicians, writers, voice actors and others. We've broken down how computers learned to talk, Yoko Ono's scream, John Cage's silence, chopped and screwed cassette tapes, the politics
Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier on Critical Listening (Ciritcal Listening By Liz Pelly, and Max Alper)
This month, we have a guest pod in the feed: It’s the debut episode of Critical Listening, music technology criticism from journalist Liz Pelly and composer-educator Max Alper, “two lifers of the Northeast underground and independent scholars of streaming era dystopia.” Liz and Max’s guest is Greg Saunier, drummer and founding member of long-running band Deerhoof. They discuss the release of Deerh
Radio Opera Redefined: Immersive Sound, Improvisation, and Sonic Freedom w/ Yvette Janine Jackson
Yvette Janine Jackson is a composer and sound artist who creates immersive compositions, drawing on a wide array of genres and life experiences. Her compositions have been commissioned internationally for a variety of mediums. Yvette Jackson often works in a mode she calls radio opera, which combines orchestral composition, modular synthesis, sampling, voice acting, and improvisation. Her work has
The Global History of Cassette Culture: Bootlegging, Indie Rock, and the Media of the Masses w/ Eleanor Patterson, Rob Drew, and Andrew Simon
Today we present a cassette theory mixtape. Three excellent scholars help us understand consumer-focused magnetic tape and its history as a medium for the masses:
Eleanor Patterson, Associate Professor of Media Studies at Auburn, whose new book just won the 2025 Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Book Award and a 2025 International Association for Media and History Book Award. It’s called B
How Music Became an Instrument of War: Military Music, Morale, and the American War Machine w/ David Suisman
University of Delaware historian David Suisman is known for his research on music and capitalism, particularly his excellent book Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Harvard UP, 2009), which won numerous awards and accolades. Suisman’s new book, Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers (U Chicago Press, 2024), brings that same erudition to the subject
Remembering Jonathan Sterne (1970-2025)
The sound studies community is reeling from the death of Jonathan Sterne this past Thursday. Jonathan’s presence and work were–and are–incredibly influential on the intellectual and ethical commitments of our field. He was a generous mentor to so many, including me. Do you know those “WWJD?” bracelets? I’ve been wearing one in my mind for about 15 years: “What Would Jonathan Do?” In this short, im
The Perfect Playlist Problem: Advertising, Ghost Musicians, and the Manipulation of Listeners w/ Liz Pelly
Liz Pelly is our foremost journalist/critic on the Spotify beat. Her byline has appeared at the Baffler, Guardian, NPR, and many other outlets. She is also an adjunct instructor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Liz is also been making the media rounds lately, talking about her new book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist (One Signal Publishers).
The book is
Navigating the Age of AI Noise: Art, Datasets, and the Cultural Impact of Generative Models w/ Eryk Salvaggio
In this episode, host Mack Hagood dives into the world of AI-generated music and art with digital artist and theorist Eryk Salvaggio. The conversation explores technical and philosophical aspects of AI art, its impact on culture, and the ‘age of noise’ it has ushered in. AI dissolves sounds and images into literal noise, subsequently reversing the process to create new “hypothetical” sounds and im
Why We’re Obsessed with Podcasts: Genre, Intimacy, and Narrative Audio w/ Neil Verma
Today we discuss how narrative podcasts work, the role they’ve played in American culture and how they’ve shaped our understanding of podcasting as a genre and an industry. Neil Verma’s new book, Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession, offers a rich analysis of the recent so-called golden age of podcasting. Verma studied around 300 podcasts and listened to several thousand episodes from betwe
Second Line: Footwork in New Orleans (Lowlines by Petra Barran)
Today we feature the first episode of a new podcast called Lowlines, which follows host Petra Barran as she travels solo through the Americas, meeting people with profound connections to the places they’re from.
This episode takes place in New Orleans and focuses on Second Line, the brass band tradition that comes out of Black funeral processions and social clubs and is known not only for the
On the Borderlands of Sound: Loudness, Affect, and the Multisensory Experience of Listening w/ Michael Heller
There are sonic experiences that can’t be contained by the word “listening.” Moments when sound overpowers us. When sound is sensed more in our bodies than in our ears. When sound engages in crosstalk with our other senses. Or when it affects us by being inaudible. Dr. Michael Heller’s new book Just Beyond Listening: Essays of Sonic Encounter (2023, U of California Press) uses affect theory to ope
Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect Theory, and the Limits of Acoustic Ecology w/ Marie Thompson
Feminist sound scholar and musician Marie Thompson is a theorist of noise. She has also been one of the key thinkers in integrating the study of sound with the study of affect. Dr. Thompson is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at the Open University in the UK. She is the author of Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect, and Aesthetic Moralism (Bloomsbury, 2017) and the co-editor of Sound, Music, Affe
How Computers Found Their Voice: Film Sound, Computer Science, and Text-to-Speech w/ Benjamin Lindquist
Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he’s currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.
In this conversation, we explore:
* the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000,
Navigating the Publishing Industry: Trade Press, Book Proposals, and Author Platforms w/ Jane Von Mehren
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Today’s episode provides a thorough walkthrough of the publishing industry for aspiring nonfiction writers. Our guest is Jane Von Mehren, Senior Partner at Aevitas Creative Management and a former Senior Vice President at Random House. Jane explains the structure of the publishing industry, how to take your area of expertise an
How Sound Shaped the Modern Office: Acoustic Space, Architectural History, and Open Plan Working w/ Joseph L. Clarke
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Ever wonder who’s to blame for the noise and distraction of the open office? Our guest has answers.
Joseph L. Clarke is a historian of art and architecture and an associate professor at the University of Toronto. His 2021 book Echo’s Chambers: Architecture and the Idea of Acoustic Space won a 2022 CHOICE Award for Outstandin
Mastering Audiobook Narration: Acting, Audiobook Technique, and Vocal Representation w/ Robin Miles
Today we bring you a masterclass in audiobook narration and acting with acclaimed actor, casting director, audiobook narrator and audiobook director, Robin Miles. Miles has narrated over 500 audiobooks, collecting numerous industry awards and, in 2017, was added to the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame. She’s the most recognizable voice in literary Afrofuturism, having interpreted books by Octavia E.
Why We Love Radio: Affect, Media History, and Radiophilia w/ Carolyn Birdsall
Today’s guest is Carolyn Birdsall, Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam. If you’re a scholar of sound or radio, you likely know her work, particularly her monograph Nazi Soundscapes (AUP, 2012) which was the recipient of the ASCA Book Award in 2013. Her new book, Radiophilia (Bloomsbury, 2023), examines the love of radio through history. It will be a great value to anyone
Cosmic Visions in Sound (The World According to Sound by Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett)
Today we share a podcast episode on the visual epistemology of astronomy by our friends at The World According to Sound. What kind of knowledge do we really gain when we look at images from space?
Longtime listeners to this show will remember The World According to Sound. As we referred to them two years ago, WATS is a team of two rogue audionauts who rebelled against the NPR mothership: Chris
Listening to Tinnitus: Stories, Science, and the Lessons from a Life Lived with Constant Sound w/ Mack Hagood
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Today Mack talks about one of his oldest companions, the tinnitus that lives rent-free in his head. Tinnitus can be annoying, for sure–and for some people it’s much worse than annoying–but it also has a lot to say of interest, if we’re willing to listen: “Tinnitus has been my guide in sound studi
From the Stage to the Page: Music, Memory, and the Evolution of the Rock Biography w/ Warren Zanes
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Warren Zanes is a “rockstar biographer” in more ways than one: he has experienced life as a rockstar, a biographer, and a biographer of rockstars. When Mack first met Warren in New Orleans sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, Zanes was then emerging from the wreckage of meteoric success. He’d b
Hacking Music and Media: Freeform Radio, Audience Agency, and Digital History w/ Elena Razlogova
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Elena Razlogova is an Associate Professor of History at Concordia University. She is the author of The Listener’s Voice: Early Radio and the American Public (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) and co-editor of “Radical Histories in Digital Culture” issue of the Radical History
Audiobooks and the New Reading Public: Disability, Neurodiversity, and Literary Criticism w/ Matthew Rubery
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Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Qu
Going Public: Podcasting, Book Writing, and Humanities Outreach w/ Mack Hagood
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In this brief opener for Season Six of Phantom Power, Mack discusses his new project of writing a trade press book, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. What are the implications for the podcast? Why pivot away from traditional scholarship and toward public-
A Philosophy of Echoes: Repetition, Response, and Relationality w/ Amit Pinchevski
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We spend our 50th episode (the last of this season) with communication theorist Amit Pinchevski. Amit’s recent book Echo (MIT Press) explores its topic through mythology, etymology, history, technology, and philosophy. The book challenges the notion that echo
John Cage and the Anechoic Chamber: Echoes, Silence, and Philosophies of Sound w/ Mack Hagood
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Today we explore the mythology around John Cage’s visit to the anechoic chamber. The chamber was designed to completely eliminate echoes. Ironically, the tale of Cage’s experience in that space has echoed through history, affecting our understanding of silence
The Promise and Peril of AI Voices: Custom Speech, Identity, and the Future of Music Creation w/ Steph Ceraso, and Hussein Boon
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Today we hear two scholars reading their recent work on artificial intelligence. Steph Ceraso studies the technology of “voice donation,” which provides AI-created custom voices for people with vocal disabilities. Hussein Boon contemplates the future of AI in
The Thomas Merton Hermitage Tapes: The Voice, Silence, and the Self w/ Brian Harnetty
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Brian Harnetty’s recent record, Words and Silences, takes voice recordings made by the famed American Trappist monk Thomas Merton and sets them within Harnetty’s musical compositions. The meditative and revealing result has been lauded by critics in The Wire, MOJO, and Aquarium
Listening Deeply (extended interview excerpt): Field Recording, Soundwalking, and the Poetics of Place w/ Hildegard Westerkamp
Here is a preview of Mack Hagood’s full one hour and forty minute interview with soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp, which includes many details and stories we couldn’t fit into the three public episodes we featured her in.
If you’re a Patron, this full episode has already dropped into your feed. If you’d like to become a Patron, visit Patreon.com/phantompower to see the options, which s
The Sound World of Harriet Tubman: Music, Faith, and Resistance w/ Maya Cunningham
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Just in time for Black History Month, we share an episode we’ve been excitedly working on for a number of months now. Ethnomusicologist Maya Cunningham brings us “The Sound World of Harriet Tubman.” Maya Cunningham is an activist and jazz singer currently completing a Ph.D. at t
Listening Deeply: Field Recording, Soundwalking, and the Poetics of Place w/ Hildegard Westerkamp
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Today we speak to Hildegard Westerkamp, the pioneering composer, radio artist and sound ecologist. The centerpiece of all of her work is a close attention to the sonic environment and its relation to culture. We will listen to excerpts of six soundscape compos
The Making of a Sound Scholar: Rejection, Resilience, and Research w/ Jonathan Sterne
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Today we feature an excerpt from our nearly 2-hour bonus episode for Patrons. In the full interview from last season’s episode “Dork-o-Phonics,” Jonathan Sterne discusses topics such as the early days of sound studies, how his upbringing and a music school rejection led
The Secrets of Next-Level Podcast Audio on Twenty Thousand Hertz w/ Dallas Taylor
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Today we talk to Dallas Taylor, host of the most popular sound podcast on the planet, Twenty Thousand Hertz. I like to think our show sounds pretty good, but Twenty Thousand Hertz is next-level audio production, some of the very best in the podcasting business. And Dallas prides him
How Data Shapes Our Listening: Algorithms, Technology, and Incommunication w/ David Cecchetto
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If you walk into David Cecchetto ‘s classroom, you might find people wearing audio devices that simulate hearing with a thousand-foot wide head. Or gadgets that swap their ears so that the left ear hears what the right should and vice versa. David is a media t
Radio as Art and Activism: Feminist Radio, Community, and DIY Technology w/ Shortwave Collective
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The Shortwave Collective describe themselves as “an international feminist group using the radio spectrum as artistic material.” I was first intrigued by their piece Receive-Transmit-Receive, an exquisite corpse of audio, in which members each contributed thei
Behind the Scenes at Cirque du Soleil: Live Sound, Performer Anxiety, and Sonic Hierarchies in Touring Productions w/ Jacob Danson Faraday
On today’s show, we address a performer’s nightmare—the nightmare of not being able to hear yourself onstage. My guest is ethnomusicologist Jacob Danson Faraday, who takes us behind the scenes of the famed Cirque du Soleil to learn how even Cirque’s world-class musicians struggle with technology when they want to hear themselves.
Building on his international career as a touring sound technici
Season Four Trailer
Get ready for Season Four of Phantom Power, where we study sound in the arts, music, and culture!
On Phantom Power, we’ve got an ear to the ground—listening to the subterranean rats of New York…
We’ve got an ear on the streets—with the rattling car trunks of Houston hip hop…
And we’ve got an ear for culture—analyzing the politics of Yoko Ono’s voice…
And in every episode, we hear from
Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture (Love is the Message by Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert)
This month, we are preparing for the launch of Season Four of the podcast in September. Lots of fascinating topics on deck, as we double our output with a semi-monthly format. We are also about to officially launch a Patreon page, but you can get on board early at www.patreon.com/phantompower.
This summer, sound artist and “guerrilla academic” Ben Coleman got in touch to say how much he enjoys
The Internet’s Most Hated Song? Musicology, Misogyny, and Internet Fame Explored w/ Paula Harper
It’s summer and we are busy working on episodes for our fourth season. We’ve also rebuilt our website–check out the the fabulous new phantompod.org. There’s other great stuff in store for the podcast, so stay tuned!
But today, I want to share one of my favorite podcasts with you: Will Robin’s Sound Expertise. For those of you into musicology or popular music studies, there’s a great chance you’re
Voices Pt. 3: Rethinking Voice, Disability, and Sound Technology w/ Jonathan Sterne
Jonathan Sterne is one of the most influential scholars working on sound and listening. His 2003 book, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction, had a formative influence on the then-nascent field of sound studies. His 2012 book, MP3: The Meaning of a Format, was both a fascinating cultural history and a deep meditation on the purpose of compression technology in capitalism. Today,
Voices Pt. 2: Gender, Voice, and Podcasting w/ Stacey Copeland
In part two of our three-part series “Voices,” we feature an exciting new voice in the world of sound studies, Stacey Copeland.
In part one last month, we examined the role voices play in professional sports and unpacked some of the understandings of ability and masculinity that inform the sound of the quarterback’s voice in the NFL. Copeland’s audio documentary, “This is the Sound of My Voice
Voices Pt. 1: Gender, Disability, and the Auditory Arena of the NFL w/ Travis Vogan, and Jonathan Sterne
In this first episode of a three-part series called Voices, we’re listening to the sound of American football—specifically the role of voices in the NFL. We start with a rather quirky story from NFL history that speaks to how the voice intersects with our ideologies around both disability and gender. It’s about a player whose voice stopped working the way it once did, revealing that football isn’t
The Making of Phantom Power: Academic Podcasting, Sonic Scholarship, and Audio Storytelling w/ Mack Hagood, Dario Llinares, and Lori Beckstead
This episode, we take you behind the scenes of Phantom Power. Producer/host Mack Hagood was invited by Dario Llinares and Lori Beckstead to be a guest on their show, The Podcast Studies Podcast. As you may or may not know, there are a lot of academics out there not only making podcast themselves but also studying podcasts and podcasting as a genre and an industry–and Dario and Lori are in that cam
Inside The World According to Sound: Exploring Micro Podcasts Narrative Critique, and Surround Sound Audio w/ Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett
The World According to Sound is the brainchild of two rogue audionauts who rebelled against the NPR mothership: Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett. It began as a micro podcast that held one unique sound under the microscope for 90 seconds each episode. Then it became something much more ambitious: a live sonic Odyssey in 8-channel surround sound. Starting January, Harnett and Hoff bring their realtime sou
Sonic Warfare and Animal Control (Re-Cast): Empathy and the Human-Animal Relationship in Sound Art w/ Mandy-Suzanne Wong, Robbie Judkins, and Colleen Plumb
In this re-cast, we examine the sounds humans make in order to monitor, repel, and control beasts. Author Mandy-Suzanne Wong’s Listen, We All Bleed is a creative nonfiction book that explores the human-animal relationship through animal-centered sound art. When we first released this episode in 2019, Listen was a collection of short essays in search of a publisher, but today we are thrilled to ann
Remembering R. Murray Schafer Pt.2: Criticism, Contradiction, and Cultural Impact w/ Jonathan Sterne, Mitchell Akiyama, and Hildegard Westerkamp
How to think about the contradictory figure of R. Murray Schafer? A renegade scholar who used sound technology to create an entirely new field of study, even as he devalued the very tools of its trade. A gifted composer who claimed a sincere appreciation for indigenous cultures, yet one who, perhaps, could only love them on his own terms, only as they fit into his sweeping vision for Canadian musi
Remembering R. Murray Schafer Pt.1: Soundscape, Acoustic Ecology, and the Tuning of the World w/ Ellen Waterman, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Eric Leonardson
R. Murray Schafer recently passed away on August 14th 2021. If you’re someone who works with sound or enjoys sound art or experimental music–or you’ve just thrown around the word “soundscape”–you’ve probably engaged with his intellectual legacy. Schafer was one of Canada’s most influential avant-garde composers. He was also the creator of acoustic ecology, the founder of the World Soundscape Proje
The Embodied Experience of Sound: Musique Concrète, Field Recordings, and Relational Listening w/ Lawrence English
Today, in honor of World Listening Day, we rebroadcast our story on renowned Australian sound composer, media artist and curator Lawrence English.
This episode of gets deep into English’s own listening practices as an artist, specifically a technique he calls Relational Listening. In fact, as you’ll hear, he describes himself not as a sound maker but as a professional listener—that’s how central t
Why Media Matters: The Overlooked Role of Sound, Comfort, and Control in Digital Life w/ Mack Hagood
What can sound technologies tell us about our relationship to media as a whole? This is one of the central questions in the research of Phantom Power‘s host, Mack Hagood. To find its answer, he studies devices that get little attention from media scholars: noise-cancelling headphones, white noise machines, apps that make nature sounds, tinnitus maskers–even musical pillows. The story these media t
Exploring the Avian Aerosphere: Bird Migration, Radio, and Eco-Sonic Storytelling w/ Jacob Smith
Today we present the first episode of Jacob Smith’s new eco-critical audiobook, Lightning Birds: An Aeroecology of the Airwaves. In this audio-only book, Smith uses expert production to craft a wildly original argument about the relations between radio and bird migration. The rest of the book is available, free of charge, from The University of Michigan Press, but this introduction is a great stan
Communicating Across Distance: Field Recording, Loneliness, and Covid-19 w/ Kate Carr
Today’s guest, Kate Carr, is an accomplished sound artist and field recordist whose recent work grapples with issues of communication and longing—themes we can all relate to in the Covid era.
In part one of the show, we mark Phantom Power’s three-year anniversary and 25th episode. Mack does a little thinking out loud about the different kinds of audio work that we’ve featured over the past thr
The Art and Activism of Yoko Ono: Racim, Feminism, and Avant-Garde Music w/ Amy Skjerseth
Today, Phantom Power‘s Amy Skjerseth brings us the story of perhaps the most famous vocal performance artist and avant-garde musician whose actual work probably doesn’t get the attention it deserves: Yoko Ono. Collaborator with the Fluxus group in the early 60s, creator of performances such as Cut Piece and her Bed In with John Lennon in the late 1960s, director of experimental films such as 1970’
Fracking, Forests, and he Art of Environmental Healing: Sound Walks, Silence, and Social Change w/ Brian Harnetty
What would happen if you took red state rural voters on a walk into the woods with left-wing environmental activists and experimental music fans? Our guest this episode knows the answer.
BRIAN HARNETTY is a composer and an interdisciplinary artist using sound and listening to foster social change.
While Brian studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, one of his teachers, Mi
How Voice Assistants Are Changing the Way We Play: Language, Technology, and Boardgames w/ Frank Lantz
The Hey Robot board game
Today, we’re playing with voice assistants and thinking about the role of voices in gaming with our guest, game designer and NYU professor Frank Lantz.
Over the past nightmare year of the coronavirus, many of us have been hunkered down, trying to figure out how to pass the time with our families. Board game sales on Amazon were up 4,000% percent in March, when Ame
Making Music in the Shadow of Censorship: Politics, Identity, and Experimental Music w/ Siavash Amini
Episode 21 presents a portrait of Iranian experimental composer Siavash Amini. His music, which moves seamlessly between contemplative ambience, menacing dissonance, and spacious melodicism, has been released on experimental imprints such as Umor Rex and Room40. His latest, A Mimesis of Nothingness, just came out on the Swiss label Hallow Ground.
Siavash tells host Mack Hagood that his entire life
How State-Owned Radio Shaped Australia’s Experimental Sound Art Scene: The Listening Room, and Sonic Innovation w/ Colin Black
What is radio art? It’s a rather unfamiliar term in the United States, but in other countries, it’s a something of an artistic tradition. Today’s guest, Dr. Colin Black is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning radio artist and composer. He speaks to us about his practice as a radio artist and the influence the Australian radio program The Listening Room had on Australia’s sonic avant gar
Under Construction
It’s been a minute, so in this short episode, we update you on what’s happening with Phantom Power and what’s coming in 2020.
The big (and sad) news is that co-host cris cheek is departing. After two years of lending his unique voice, ideas, and turns of phrase to the show–not to mention producing fantastic episodes like his interview with This Heat’s Charles Hayward–cris has decided to refocus on
Houston’s Slab Scene (Re-Cast): DJ Screw, Car Culture, and Chopped and Screwed Hip Hop w/ Langston Collin Wilkins
Today we re-cast one of our favorite episodes, an interview with folklorist and Houston native Langston Collin Wilkins, who studies “slab” culture and the “screwed and chopped” hip hop that rattles the slabs and serves as the culture’s soundtrack.
Since the 1990s, many of Houston’s African American residents have customized cars and customized the sound of hip hop. Cars called “slabs” swerve a slo
The Lost Sounds of Silent Cinema: Vaudeville, Magic Lanterns, and Movie Palaces w/ Rick Altman, and Eric Dienstfrey
What did going to the movies sound like back in the “silent film” era? The answer takes us on a strange journey through Vaudeville, roaming Chautauqua lectures, penny arcades, nickelodeons, and grand movie palaces. As our guest In today’s episode, pioneering scholar of film sound, Rick Altman, tells us, the silent era has a lot to teach us about why sound works the way it does at the movies today.
How EDM and Pop Music Reflect Neoliberalism: Resilience, Melancholy, and the Beat w/ Robin James
Why do certain musical sounds move us while others leave us cold? Are musical trends simply that—or do they contain insights into the culture at large? Our guest is a musicologist who studies pop and electronic dance music. She’s fascinated by the way EDM privileges timbral and rhythmic complexity over the chord changes and harmonic complexities of the blues-based rock and pop music of yore. Howev
Podcasting the Gothic: Frankenstein, Academia, and Critique w/ Anna M. Williams
With My Gothic Dissertation, University of Iowa PhD Anna M. Williams has transformed the dreary diss into a This American Life-style podcast. Williams’ witty writing and compelling audio production allow her the double move of making a critical intervention into the study of the gothic novel, while also making an entertaining and thought-provoking series for non-experts. Williams uses famed novels
The Woman Who Disrupted Violin Making: Stradivarius, Science, and Acoustic innovation w/ Craig Eley
In the 1950s, a schoolteacher named Carleen Hutchins attempted a revolution in how concert violins are made. In this episode, Craig Eley of the Field Noise podcast tells us how this amateur outsider used 18th century science to disrupt the all-male guild tradition of violin luthiers. Would the myth of the never-equaled Stradivarius violin prove to be true or could a science teacher with a woodshop
Malagasy Music and Memory: Field Recordings, Cultural Encounters, and Postcolonial Listening w/ Chris Cheek
In an unusual episode, we listen back to field recordings that co-host cris cheek made in 1987 and 1993 on the island of Madagascar. It’s a rich sonic travelogue, with incredible musicians appearing at seemingly every stop along the way. Mack interviews cris, who discusses the strangeness and surprises of listening back to the sounds of that other time and place–and listening to the voice of an ea
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